


Stepping Stones

by Oort



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, There's some minimal language in here, Young!Royai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-04
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-02-07 11:53:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1897980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oort/pseuds/Oort
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roy cleared his throat and attempted to arrange his face into something less moronic.  “What?”</p><p>“How do you kiss,” Riza repeated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stepping Stones

Roy’s mouth was hanging open.

It was not an attractive look on him, he knew—he’d once spent an hour in front of a mirror trying to get the “sly and incredibly sexy smirk” perfected, and it turned out he had a tendency to go slack-jawed when concentrating— but by the time he realized, it was too late, and besides, it was the only possible response to what he’d just heard.

Well. He could think of one other, but he _wasn’t going to do that no sir._ Not when he still valued his limbs.

She was staring at him. Roy cleared his throat and attempted to arrange his face into something less moronic. “What?”

“How do you kiss,” Riza repeated. She didn’t look the least bit embarrassed about it, which was good and well because Roy was blushing enough for the both of them. She folded her arms and shifted her weight onto one hip, and considering what she’d just asked it was probable that she didn’t realize she’d essentially shoved her breasts up at Roy’s face, but that didn’t make it any less flustering.

“Why do you want to know?” he asked, before he could follow _that_ train of thought any further. “What, is there some guy who’s been trying to kiss you?” Now there was an idea he didn’t like. “Don’t let him.”

“None of your business,” she said, in that _it’s my life so get your ugly beak out_ voice she’d apparently learned just for him (he’d never heard her use it on her father but then— he couldn’t exactly blame her. His master was many things, but “tolerant of back-talk” was not one of them).

That didn’t mean she could get away with it, though. “Nuh-uh. Information’s got a cost.” He crossed his arms to mimic her. “In this case, information back. From you.”

Riza sighed and lifted a hand to scratch at the base of her neck—right where her hair ended, and it was probably really soft there, and—slow down, Roy, Riza’s talking.

“I read it in a book,” she said; her stance became defiant. “It just. It seemed so _messy_.”

“Kissing _is_ messy,” Roy said, trying to get the image of his own fingers running through Riza’s hair out of his head. “At least, the good kind is.” His brain caught up to his mouth. “I mean, the kind that’s not, like, between mothers and their children. Or fathers.” Berthold had probably never kissed Riza in his life. “Because that’s not. Ew. No. Or like, little kids. Though kids are pretty messy themselves, so. Sticky. But that’s not what you were asking about?” He laughed, or tried to. It sounded more like he was trying to dislodge a hairball.

Her eyebrows had drawn together; she was frowning very determinedly at something over his left shoulder, and dammit now he’d turned her off kissing for life, she was going to die miserable and unkissed and it was going to be _all his fault._

“Thank you,” she said, and made to leave, still frowning. Roy sighed and reached out to grab her, thought better of it, and let his arm fall uselessly back to his side.

“Wait, Riza.”

She turned around; he couldn’t tell if she was expectant or irritated, but for safety’s sake he was banking on the latter. He sighed again and ran his hand through his _own_ hair, because he really couldn’t be distracted now. “Look, it isn’t—you don’t have to start that way. It’s actually better if you don’t,” and he was going to do this, he was going to convince her kissing wasn’t awful and, so she’d keep believing him, save her from suffering the same kind of first kiss he’d had. He still wasn’t entirely convinced he hadn’t broken his nose on that girl’s teeth. “Okay, it’s like this.” 

Like what, exactly? It wasn’t like he could make out with _himself_ for a demonstration. And it would take too long to go down to the village to find some willing girl. Who would be considerably less willing when she learned the entire thing was a show for Crazy Berthold’s daughter. Riza looked to be coming around to the expectant side now, though, and he couldn’t let her go off thinking kissing was some nasty slobber-fest (well, okay, so not all kissing, even if— nope, stopping that thought train again, _good_ bye). After a moment of hesitation, he brought his hands up between them and crooked the first two fingers of each.

“So these are your lips, all right? Just pretend,” he said, before Riza could do that suspicious eye-narrowing thing she was so good at. “And these are your, um, partner’s. You’ve kind of gotta—“ he bumped his fingers together so that the “lips” of one hand stacked up on either side of the others. “That’s why it’s called a lip-lock, see? You kind of stagger them.”

“And that feels…nice?” She was still frowning, but it was a curious frown, now, and Roy felt—despite the heat creeping across his face and up under his collar—that he deserved hearty pat on the back for un-screwing this up.

“Yeah,” he said. “It—“ _shut-up-now_ “—yeah.” He coughed, breaking half of the “kiss” to cover his mouth.

“Hm.” She was looking at him, but he didn’t think she was actually seeing him. “So.” she touched his fingers, the ones still held out in front of him in a claw, like the dope he was, and then, without him knowing how, there was a short, soft pressure on his lips, and she was stepping back and blinking at him—how was she stepping back, to be stepping back she had to have gotten close, and that meant _oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit_ —

“Like that?” She was doing a little bounce-thing from foot to foot that was distractingly adorable, and she was biting the inside of her bottom lip, and oh, she’d just kissed him, hadn’t she?

For the second time in as many minutes, Roy’s mouth fell open. He might have been concerned about it if any part of his brain had been functioning at all.

“Right,” she said, after a moment—it sounded more like a squeak than an actual word, and Riza didn’t squeak, what?—and she darted out of the room, skidding and almost falling as the carpet shot out from under her. He heard the clomping of running footsteps up the stairs, down the hall, and then the _slam!_ of her bedroom door.

Roy hobbled over to the wall and slumped against it, this head thumping uncomfortably close to the spiky base of the light fixture by the door. He gazed up at it with the desperation of a dying man.

“Help,” he croaked, and covered his face with his hands.

 

* * *

 

**Notes:**

Based off of [this ](http://otpprompts.tumblr.com/post/82693295985/imagine-person-a-teaching-person-b-of-your-otp-how)

 


End file.
